This event has been canceled due to illness.
Inspired by both seasonal and cosmic ennui, Baritone Jean Bernard Cerin and Pianist Sezi Seskir explore how French, Canadian, and Haitian composers have explored melancholy and escapism in the mélodie and piano music.
Jean Bernard Cerin is a multifaceted artist and scholar who produces and performs in projects ranging from film, recital, oratorio, opera and folk music. Praised for his “burnished tone and focused phrasing,” (Chestnut Hill Local) Jean Bernard performs extensively as a baritone with leading early music ensembles across the United States. Recent highlights include Bach’s Peasant Cantata with soprano Julian Baird and the Philadelphia Bach Collegium in Philadelphia and a staged performance of Bach’s Coffee Cantata with Classical Uncorked in Seattle Washington. On the operatic stage, Jean Bernard made his company debut as John Styx with Opera Ithaca & Raylynmor Opera last season. This season, he makes his company debut with Opera Lafayette in a modern premier of Jean-Joseph Mouret’s Les Fetes de Thalie at the Kennedy Center. Jean Bernard Cerin lives in Ithaca, NY where serves on faculty at Cornell University.
Sezi Seskir received her first degree in piano in her native, Ankara, Turkey. She went on with her studies in Lübeck Musikhochschule and then completed a D.M.A. degree with Malcolm Bilson in Cornell University. She concertized widely in Europe and in the US. Seskir edited the piano works of Robert Schumann for the Schott and Bärenreiter publishing houses in Germany. She is also the co-editor of an essay collection titled “Topics in Musical Interpretation” that was published by Routledge. Her CD of three Beethoven violin sonatas with Lucy Russell recorded on period instruments appeared in 2020 by the Acis label, which was received enthusiastically by reviewers. She is a co-founder of the Chamber Music Collective, an intensive chamber music program on period instruments. She is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Bucknell University.
The salon will last just over an hour and will be followed by a light reception, to which all are invited.
This event is co-sponsored by The Society for Humanities.
Join us on Friday, February 14th at the historic A.D. White House at 5pm. This event is free and open to the public.
